"Our Genocide"
B’Tselem calls the Israeli war on Gaza what it is: genocide.
In its latest report, aptly titled “Our Genocide”, B’Tselem states what must be a deeply uncomfortable truth: this is genocide. Over 58,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed since 7 October 2023, including more than 10,000 children. And let’s be honest: the actual number is likely much higher. We only counts the confirmed dead – no one knows how many remain buried beneath the rubble.
In a letter he left before taking his own life, Israeli soldier Daniel Adri reportedly described one of the things that drove him to suicide: the stench of dead bodies in Gaza. It's one voice – but one that points to a larger picture: a military force sent in not to liberate, but to annihilate. Soldiers have described in various media reports so-called “free-fire zones,” officers ordering them to shoot anything that moves – and units competing over who can cause the most destruction.
Health centres, water and power supplies lie in ruins. Schools, mosques, churches, and cultural sites are systematically destroyed. Millions are being continuously displaced – either to coerce “voluntary” ethnic cleansing, or simply to kill them. Their crime? Being Palestinian.
We’ve seen air strikes on densely populated residential areas – often without warning. Doctors describe changing wound patterns from day to day, suggesting that soldiers are holding informal competitions over which body parts they target: legs, genitals, heads. According to B’Tselem, this isn’t incidental – it’s a practice that meets the Rome Statute’s definition of genocide.
Food warehouses, bakeries, and water lines are deliberately bombed. Humanitarian aid is blocked at the border. Children are dying of dehydration and malnutrition while the blockade keeps Gaza sealed off from basic necessities. Hunger is being used as a weapon of war – deliberately and openly. B’Tselem describes how the Israeli military not only obstructs aid but targets food supplies and distribution routes. The aim is clear: to break people through starvation – in flagrant violation of international law.
The population is driven from their homes into so-called “safe zones” – only to find these zones turned into mass graves. This is ethnic cleansing with a clear goal: to empty Gaza. Or as the report puts it: forcing people into “concentration centres” or quite literally concentration camps. In Rafah, over one million people were packed together before the area itself was bombed. In al-Mawasi, families lived without shelter, water, or medical aid – and were still subjected to airstrikes.
Universities, schools and religious sites have been reduced to ash. Not because Hamas was hiding there, but because the cultural memory of the Palestinian people is being targeted for erasure. Over 370 educational institutions have been destroyed. Large universities, like the Islamic University of Gaza, have been flattened. We’ve seen videos of laughing soldiers saying “there’ll be no more engineers from Gaza” before blowing up the building. We've seen targeted killings of doctors, journalists, and intellectuals. According to the report, this is a deliberate effort to destroy the intellectual and cultural backbone of the population.
Top politicians have spoken of turning Gaza “blood red.” In schoolbooks and social media, Palestinians are portrayed as subhuman – as “vermin” that must be exterminated. From military leaders to online commentators, mass killing is approved and encouraged. The way Palestinians have spoken about Israel and Jews has been the subject of endless scrutiny. But the systematic dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli politics, education, and public discourse has gone largely unnoticed. B’Tselem quotes ministers and generals referring to Palestinians as “human animals” – and stresses that this language is not fringe extremism, but mainstream rhetoric.
Pro-Israeli voices react strongly when Israeli war conduct is compared to that of the Nazis. The Holocaust, they argue, is unique and must never be relativised. It’s an important principle – but it becomes a hollow ritual when those same voices stay silent as Israeli politicians and officers routinely refer to Palestinians as “Nazis.” In Israeli public discourse, such labels have become common – not to highlight extremism, but to legitimise violence, oppression, and mass killings. Branding those they target as Nazis is a deliberate strategy: their own historical victimhood is turned into moral immunity.
This is part of a broader, long-standing communications strategy known as hasbara – a Hebrew term often translated as “explanation” or “public diplomacy,” but which in practice functions as a system of propaganda and narrative control. Hasbara is not incidental – it’s supported by government budgets, embassies, and lobbying efforts worldwide. The goal is to win the information war, shape public opinion, and undermine criticism. Controlling the language, imagery, and storytelling is as vital as controlling territory. When the reality in Gaza challenges that narrative, the hasbara machine strikes back – often by accusing critics of antisemitism, no matter how credible or fact-based their observations may be.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not “collateral damage.” It is a coordinated campaign of extermination, sanctioned by the Israeli government and military. Over 70 years of occupation, apartheid laws and race-based policies are now culminating in what B’Tselem rightly calls genocide.
Military intervention is unlikely – and would in any case require the political will of global powers. But here’s the truth: the only country to attempt stopping this genocide with force is one of the poorest in the world – Yemen. A nation devastated by war, blockade, and hunger – now bombed by the US, UK and Israel simply for standing with the Palestinians. When the poorest take a stand, what is our excuse?
But action doesn’t have to mean armed intervention. The West is not helpless. It is complicit.
Governments calling for “ceasefire” are in the same moment delivering weapons, intelligence and diplomatic cover to the perpetrators. Major arms manufacturers linked to Israeli war crimes continue to receive Western investment – including public and pension funds.
If we truly believe in human rights and international law, then symbolic words are no longer enough.
We must act:
Enact a full trade and diplomatic boycott of Israel, as we did with apartheid South Africa.
Cut diplomatic ties with those orchestrating this genocide.
Support investigation and prosecution of Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court.
Identify and investigate individuals in our own countries potentially implicated in war crimes, working with civil society and legal institutions.
Divest all public and institutional funds from Israeli companies complicit in the occupation and war crimes.
This is not unprecedented – we’ve done it before with companies involved in abuses in Myanmar and apartheid South Africa. Anything less today is complicity.
Because the truth is this: “Never again” has failed – because it was never truly tried. The world is silent. UN vetoes protect the aggressors. Weapons and aid continue to flow freely to an apartheid state committing genocide.
Boycott. Divest. Sanction. Now.
For Gaza. For justice. For our own humanity.
Translated and a bit refocused from my article in Norwegian Newspaper Klassekampen today.
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Article Series Zionism
